All That Is Gold Is Rusting
by fire ice rage
Summary: AU in which Sebastian dies in Afghanistan; Jim reflects on his feelings about it. Jim/Seb.


_All that is gold is rusting  
No one will know  
When seasons cease to change and:  
How far we've gone  
How far we're going  
It's the here and the now  
And the love for the sound  
Of the moments that keep us moving  
- The Temper Trap_

**A/N: I know it's really short but since it's basically just an angst fanfic, I figured making it longing would've ruined the idea.  
**

* * *

A violent gush of rain splashed fiercely onto the streets of England, sopping down dimly lit windows and merrily drenching each passerby to its satisfaction. Somewhere inside a flat in London, James Moriarty lay bitterly in a cloak of retention. It was the middle of the goddamned winter and yet it seemed to be that everybody was still so uncomfortable with all of this_ wet. _

He wondered when, exactly, this had begun - because, after all, it wasn't always like this. At first when the fiery streets were put out by a downpour, he would come home and shake the rain out of his hair and crawl into bed. He would lay his head on the chest of the body next to him and trace Sebastian's cheekbones with his finger as the man slept, listening to the ferocious patter of rain outside and hazily enjoying every second of it.

And now what was he? - too cynical and unforgiving and hungry. But what _is_ hunger, he often thought, in a metaphysical sense? Is it stagnant and gray, something that bubbles in the pit of his stomach when he's alone? Is it the sensation of - after tons of self-debating and -loathing - forcing himself to remember the curve of Sebastian's jawline, the smell of cum and sweat on his skin after they fucked, the way lines formed near the corners of his eyes when he smiled? Is it some poor bastard reading off a list of dead Afghan soldiers, paying no attention to the letters his brain formed into names, except for one particular name, one name that meant the whole world had begun to swirl out of control?

"Fuck you," he often said to his lover's memory, cursing the one thing he cared about for making him feel weak, for making him remember every goddamned night that sickly sweet hot breath tempted him, for making him become _just that_ - feeble, a Lucifer of a hell he created in his own mind, stuck there in a slab of ice.

But tonight, the only thing he felt was as if it had been too long without another body sleeping next to him, so he proceeded to turn onto his side and grab desperately at the air and frayed sheets next to him where Sebastian would have - should have? - been. He thought that maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe the damage - the hunger and loneliness - inside of him was infinite. Maybe he was the one person that was broken beyond repair ever since Sebastian Moran had died.

The fucking bastard, Jim thought shrilly. Why would anybody ever want to go to war? Why would somebody want to go overseas to a foreign country so that they could take somebody else's life and get their's taken in return? He demanded answers, but for once, there weren't any. He figured it would have been easier to comprehend if it wasn't happening to _him_ - but because it was, he was just as fucked as anybody else. Yet, he never cried - the edges of his eyes never even burned slightly on the nights he stayed awake looking at the shadows on his ceiling. A lot of things had changed, but that was the one constant in his mismanaged life.

It seemed as though there was hardly any air left in the room now. He rolled onto his back again, the memory of winter time two years ago seering its way into his mind. He remembered reading out loud to Sebastian on one particular night - "I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close." He remembered his friend's prompt and a bit drunken response - "Loving me does all that?" It went on from there. "I never said I loved you." "You didn't have to."

Jim almost smiled into the blackness of his bedroom, but it wasn't suppose to be this way. He wasn't suppose to be so dependent on anybody other than himself. But how could he be expected to not resent somebody who gave him so much bliss and love and then took it all away?

It was particularly then when fresh tears began to build in his eyes against his will. He wiped them away with his sleeve, but still more came, and for the first time in sixth months, James Moriarty was crying. He swore brutally, infuriated with himself for being so_ childish_. But in that very moment he realized the problem - he had swallowed everything before it could swallow him. All of the pain and cravings were shoved so far down his throat that he had begun to blame himself for every last thing that had ever troubled him, and now everything that was buried down there was finding its way back out again.

"I was a child," he admitted to the darkness. "But I recently grew up."


End file.
